In Gear | Rotary in Southern New Zealand Issue 1 | Page 38

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district 9980

Listening up, clubs? Every single
one of Dunedin’s Rotarians are
sending out a war cry – and don’t
say you didn’t get a heads up.

You heard it here first. It’s true. Dunedin, Dunedin East,
Dunedin North, Dunedin South, St Kilda Sunrise, Dunedin
Central and the new E-WASH clubs are … GETTIN’ THEIR
PURPLE ON, all in the name of eradicating the last of
polio on the planet.
What’s more, they’re putting the
heat on every club in our District
9980 to do it, too … and have
thrown up the southern challenge:
“try and outdo us Dunedinites in
style, flair … and money raised for
our major annual polio eradication
event, Purple Pinkie Day, on
October 28”.
Purple Pinkie Day organiser
Susanah Walker says most
Rotarians have seen the “We’re
This Close” campaign around
polio eradication, (click to watch
the video) and understand we’re,
hopefully, nearing the day when
Rotary’s mission to rid the world
of this crippling disease is finally
over. After Rotary’s 30-plus year
battle, polio is all but defeated;
it remains only in Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Nigeria, with the
numbers of new cases constantly
reducing.

polio in its tracks, the start of another worldwide epidemic
is really only one plane flight away.
Susanah says Dunedin clubs are already full throttle
ahead, and plan to recruit the city’s businesses to deck
out people and property in purple for a mufti day – and
plans are afoot to bathe a couple of key buildings in
purple on October 28 to mark Purple Pinkie Day; though,
there’s still no word back from the weather gods on a
request for Purple Rain.
If your club’s keen to join the challenge, you can find
resources, including key background information on
polio, here.

NEWS UPDATE
After two years of no reported
polio cases in Nigeria, two
youngsters have recently
been struck down and
paralysed by the disease.
The news is devastating for
all Rotarians.
However, this setback serves
as a tragic - albeit vital reminder as to just how
virulent polio is, and why we
must not let up the fight until
it is eradicated everywhere
once and for all.

But, as frontline health workers are quick to remind us,
while we really are “this close”, without a final, concerted
push to carry out the last waves of vaccinations to stop

District 9980 treasurer Murray Kennedy administers a polio vaccine to a
newborn in Gujarat, India, during a 2009 Group Study Exchange he led.

Susanah will be collecting and tallying
results from around the district, and
we’ll be announcing the winning club
in late October.
Many of us remember, it wasn’t that
long ago, polio plagued the western
world, too.
Here’s a moving account from
Rotary International president John
Germ about the harrowing day polio
struck his family, and the important
duty we modern-day Rotarians have
to finish off what was started in the
early 80s.

While Susanah has a healthy
competitive spirit, she’s not totally
averse to giving clubs outside
Dunedin a hand to help their Purple
Pinkie Day fundraising efforts. If
you’re keen to take Dunedin on in
the challenge, and you need resources, inspiration or just
a bit of a steer in the right direction, feel free to contact
Susanah on 021 0828 7225.

Newly-vaccinated girls show off their “purple pinkies” - the sign they’ve
already received their polio inoculation.